Calgary Expo

I've been to the Calgary Expo three times now, but I'm just now giving it a post of its own. The first year I went was the infamous Star Trek TNG cast reunion year, when I and numerous other people got locked out for a few hours due to overcrowding of the venue. The following year I wore the most uncomfortable shoes ever on the first day of the con as part of my Lady Tuxedo Mask costume, resulting in extreme grumpiness for the remainder of the weekend. This year was pretty good, though!

I went with my friend Dave and his brother and their friend (Nathan and Jason respectively). As per usual this blog will remain free of pictures of humans, though. I was shy of my two less familiar companions at first, but that was mostly handled by the end of the weekend, thanks in large part to Jason's offer to sleep on the cot in our hotel room while I got a bed to myself.

Here are some neat sections for you, because wow this is a long post.


I went to a few panels this year, but I think less than previous years.  One thing that the Expo could definitely work on is having a greater variety of fan panels.  It's now substantially bigger than Dragon Con apparently, but that con has at least twice the number of panels, if not five times more.

Fields of Play: The Role of the Map in Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Gaming

This was the first panel I went to and it was great. Map Dude, who ran the panel solo, was knowledgeable and fun to listen to on the topic of the history and functions of real maps and fantasy ones.  I could've sat there much longer than 45 minutes for sure.  In fact, I even sought him out later to ask what he thought of aliens and the search for extraterrestrial life in the context of his talk.  This led to a conversation during which I'm not sure either of us understood the other, but he gave me a dinosaur drawing, so all was well.

Women in Video Gaming

This panel was moderated by Stephanie Chan, and you can find more details on her blog.  It basically featured some Albertan ladies of the video game development world.  They all made good points but I think I'd heard them all before.  No voices of dissent from the crowd.  But then it wasn't a debating panel, so.

Classic Horror

Unfortunately I can't remember what the actual title of this panel was or the names of the dudes who were on it. I had to stand through it because I spent too much time getting a hot dog (this is a con tradition for me, I don't ever eat hot dogs when I order food otherwise).  At least I was standing beside a cute boy. There was basically just some discussion about how pervasive a lot of the old horror films are in modern culture. They also played a couple of great clips sets from classic Universal Studios

and Hammer Films.

I do hate the part of Q&As where people aren't asking real questions, but rather looking to have their own views validated by the panelists (eg "What are your thoughts on horror remakes?").  The "Women in Video Gaming" panel had a problem with this as well.


There are great artists at this event year after year, and given infinite money and wall space, I would buy a ton of art.  I had to stick with these artists this year, though:

Famous People

Bruce Campbell

I have to admit to seeing like no Bruce Campbell movies, but based on his twitter feed and other information, I decided I'd have to go to his panel.  He basically was solo on stage answering random questions from the audience the whole time.

Anthony Daniels

We cornered this poor man in a wine/beer cooler completely by chance. We were in there before he was.  I got starstruck (I have a cool attitude toward famous people, but when faced with them I am a mess) and crazy-eyed and asked him for a photo, completely not realizing that we were three large Canadians who were surrounding him in a freezer.  He was gracious but obviously tired after a long day.

Bill Paxton

One of those actors who shows up in everything whose name I can never remember.  He told good stories and answered audience questions and also a phone call from his son during the panel.

Aliens cast reunion

Sigourney Weaver.


I've been getting more and more into costumes lately, and so I ended up having some pretty serious thoughts about the costume contest at the Expo, which I wrote down immediately afterward and have tried to clean up a bit for you here.  Sorry if this section is ranty and a bit disjointed.

I guess I'll start with the broader issues I have with cosplay sometimes. I'm absolutely not trying to call anyone out as being a "fake geek" and honestly many of the problems with cosplay originate with the depictions of women in the media rather than the cosplayers themselves. Someone wearing an accurate Elektra costume is just producing what's in the comics, never mind that it's hyper sexualized. Likewise with under-armoured female video game characters.  What makes me uncomfortable is sexyfying of otherwise non-sexualized characters*, which often seems to end up as the exploitation of the female body. Perhaps these cosplayers feel empowered by their costumes, and that's great, but it makes me pretty uncomfortable. I agree that it can be really satisfying to make something that really showcases your body in a provocative and beautiful way, but I can't tell if that's always what's happening. I'd need to talk to more cosplayers about this. I think mainly I feel uncomfortable because I've so rarely seen men do this sort of thing.  Another problem I have is that my coworkers are constantly making gross comments about Chivettes, so I'm hypersensitive to this kind of thing right now.

Anyway, there was at least one good thing about the Calgary costume contest, which was that there were lots of lady cosplayers, in a wide variety of costume types.  This included some really great large-scale costumes (Stitch, a Mondoshawan from The Fifth Element), and lots with armour.

There were a couple of things that I didn't know how to feel about, though. The Expo had three big cosplay guests this year, which is cool, but they were all tiny skinny white girls.  I'm not familiar enough with famous cosplayers to say who else they might've gotten, but I'm sure there are cosplayers out there who would appreciate the exposure. There was at least one black woman who competed in the contest (as Storm!) so obviously there are cosplayers of other races out there, and hopefully some of other sizes too. Probably not as popular, but if the geek community really wants to be diverse and put its money where its mouth is, then the pandering to the straight male demographic is the first thing that needs to stop.

I also had some issues with some of the commentary by the host of the contest.  Again, this might have a lot to do with my own experiences at work lately, but there were just some awkward comments made about some of the sexier costumes (some more accurate Avatar: The Last Airbender costumes, some less accurate sexy Pokemon, the Sailor Scouts, etc). At the same time, I really don't want to deny anyone what they like and find sexy. I feel like I've even written about that here a time or two.  But it's just that these comments are never made about men. The host was clearly a straight man, so maybe they should be bringing in straight lady cohosts to ogle the dudes? I dunno.

What I'd love to hear are some other people's thoughts on this.  Especially if you're a person who sexyfies your costumes, or just makes costumes that are designed as sexy by the creators.

* I could probably be called hypocritical here because of the Lady Tuxedo Mask costume that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, a costume that included fishnets and a corset and a few other sexy elements.  A lot of people called that costume "Sexy" Tuxedo Mask.  I'm willing to own up to this, but would like to note that:
(1) My costume really wasn't all that revealing. The neckline was slightly plunging, and the skirt was a little bit short (like mid thigh or something) but really nothing extreme.
(2) Tuxedo Mask is already sexy! He's a dark mysterious stranger! I certainly could have tried to channel that in some other way with respect to my costume, but I'm pretty comfortable with what I did do.  This is not the same thing as a sexy Pokemon, because Pokemon aren't sexy to begin with.


So that was Calgary Expo!  Tune in next time I write about a con!  It could be any time!


  1. Hmm, that's a really complicated topic (re: cosplay, gender, sexualization, etc), but I just had a thought based on your last few comments: people ascribing the "sexy" tag to a costume simply because it's a woman wearing women's clothing for their character. I think it's connected, but I don't have anything more substantial to offer than "argh" and that it's complicated and frustrating!

    1. Yeah, I'm sure that there are people out there who have put some thought into this, and I should probably seek out their conclusions.